Victoria Potter

By Taure

Chapter Twenty One: Boggarting

Once their disguises had worn off, the imposters were revealed to be Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Neville Longbottom. Professor Snape wasted no time in dragging them off to the Headmaster's office, and that evening the Slytherin common room was dominated by speculation as to what punishment they would face.

The next morning, the Slytherins arrived at the entrance hall to find the Gryffindor hour-glass much depleted of house points. Their jubilation only grew over the course of breakfast, as it became increasingly clear that the body-snatchers were not in attendance. The mood at the Gryffindor table was distinctly muted, and the whispers spreading across the hall were that the perpetrators' belongings had disappeared from Gryffindor tower.

"Good riddance," Pansy said, pouring herself some tea. "That girl cost me a perfectly good robe."

Tracey frowned. "Er… what happened to your robe?"

"Burnt it," Pansy said. "I could hardly wear it after Granger had touched it, after all. It felt all wrong."

Victoria suppressed her instinct to scoff at the waste a perfectly good robe, instead focusing on spreading strawberry jam on her toast. For once, she actually felt sympathy for Pansy. To have your body stolen by someone, worn around the castle then discarded… really, it was no wonder Pansy was burning robes in some kind of ritualised cleansing.

"Do you really think they've been expelled?" Daphne asked. "Just like that?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," Victoria said. She thought back to Mrs Malfoy's letter to Auror Savage. "Taking someone's body is pretty serious, isn't it? Like, they can send you to Azkaban for it."

Daphne looked troubled. "But… what will Neville do now?"

"He'll get tutors, I suppose," Pansy said. "The Longbottoms can afford it."

Further down the table, Draco leaned forward to join the conversation. "There's no way Weasley can. And he'd be lucky to find an apprenticeship... no Master wants someone who's been expelled."

"And Granger?" Victoria asked. "What happens to Muggleborns if they're chucked out?"

Everyone shrugged.

"I guess they go back to being a Muggle," Daphne said. "That's where their family is, after all."

Victoria shuddered at the thought. To go back to the Dursleys, cut off from Hogwarts and magic… she could imagine no worse fate. It was almost enough to make her feel bad for Hermione, until she reminded herself that the girl had brought it all on herself.

Their speculation was interrupted by Professor McGonagall standing to make the morning announcements.

"I have just two notices today," she said, the hall falling silent at her voice. One did not speak over Professor McGonagall. "Firstly, please note that the quidditch calendar has been adjusted to make time for the Defence field trip after Easter. The next match, between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, will now take place on the third weekend of February.

"Secondly, I wish to address the rumours which have been circulating this morning. Normally the staff would not comment on such things, but the gravity of the situation demands it. Last night, three members of Gryffindor house were suspended from Hogwarts for the use of dark magic against their fellow students."

Victoria glanced at Pansy, who looked disappointed by the news. Being sent home was a serious punishment, but it was far from expulsion. Down the staff table, Snape's scowl suggested that he shared Pansy's opinion.

"Let me be clear," McGonagall continued. "This school does not tolerate the abuse of dark magic, and all perpetrators will be punished severely. In this case, it was only the students' misguided good intentions which saved them from being expelled. Even so, the sorry affair will be a permanent black mark on their records. You have been warned."

McGonagall sat down and the hall dissolved into whispers. Victoria did not join in. She had twice used her metamorphmagus powers to imitate another person—once as Hermione, and once as McGonagall herself. Would that have counted as body-snatching, too? Had she unknowingly been running the risk of expulsion?

A chill went down her spine. Suddenly she was rather glad of her instinct to keep her powers a secret—she would have to be very careful not to reveal them in the future.


The Hogwarts routine reasserted itself, and the Christmas holidays passed into distant memory.

Most of Victoria's spare time was spent on her Charms work. It took a number of attempts to produce her totem, which she was determined to perfect before she put it to use. First she had to transfigure a block of wood into the shape of a goshawk—a simple enough task, but it was complicated by her desire to make the model as life-like as possible. Several evenings of practice were required before she was satisfied with the level of detail in the feathers, and a further day to get the eyes just right. The end result was a wooden totem which looked like it would take flight at any moment.

She didn't stop there, however. While her classmates were beginning work on the Locomotion Charm, practising its casting while holding their totem in their off-hand, Victoria was attempting to transfigure her goshawk into white phosphorus. It was trickier than she had first anticipated, and she was forced to make multiple visits to the library to get it right.

It was therefore over a week before Victoria was able to attend Charms with her finished totem in hand, its waxy, yellowish form glowing with a soft light. By that time her classmates were well ahead of her, their stuttering attempts at locomotion already beginning to bear fruit as their totems became accustomed to the charm.

Victoria's first locomotion was not a resounding success. She had hoped that the effort of perfecting her totem would pay off quickly, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect.

"Locomotor cushion!" she said, her totem clutched in her left hand, expecting the cushion to lift off the ground and hover in the air—only for it to fly across the classroom, swooping in an arc before colliding forcefully with the window. She tried several more times, all with the same result.

That was all she could persuade the cushion to do. No matter how she adjusted the spell, no matter how hard she focused on her wish for the cushion to remain stationary, it would head directly for the window. Obviously, the goshawk longed for the open skies.

Tom had warned her that her totem possessed a powerful spirit, but she was at a loss as to how to master it. Perhaps her will was just too weak?

Reluctantly, she took out the diary and asked his advice.

Willpower is not desire, Tom wrote. Willpower is determination, focus, discipline, and sheer stubbornness. You will not master the goshawk in one day, no matter how strongly you wish it. You must prove yourself.

It was just like the Draught of Sparta, she realised. Actions mattered. The more she came to understand magic, the more she realised the importance of that. How could she claim to have willpower, if she expected to succeed on the first attempt? No, to prove her will she would need to persevere, to practice and practice until the goshawk's resistance was exhausted.

It was unfortunate that her Charms work would come to demand so much of her time, because Victoria was quickly coming to remember the many ongoing projects that had kept her busy before the Christmas break. Even with the Draught of Sparta out of the way, her every free moment was packed with reading and wandwork.

As always, her classes were fascinating. They had started a new topic in Transfiguration, using the Shaping Spell to alter the form of objects composed of multiple substances, and Professor McGonagall had loaned Victoria her personal copy of Rowena Ravenclaw's masterwork The Anatomy of Form. In Herbology they were learning how to trick plants into thinking it was spring, and in duelling Professor Flitwick was teaching them to transition smoothly from a block into casting.

Meanwhile, her study of alchemy was stuck in a rut. She had read Natural Magic numerous times, taking copious notes as she attempted to grapple with the challenging subject, but she was finding that further study of the text was yielding few results. It was time to move on to another book, one capable of bridging the gaps in her understanding. She lost an entire evening searching the Restricted Section for something suitable, finally settling on a collection of works by the Persian alchemist Avicenna.

Of course, Susan did not let Victoria forget about their project to create a foe glass. They spent most lunch breaks together in the library, Susan carefully etching runes into the glass while Victoria started to practice the Anamorphosis Charm.

"I still don't really get what that does," Susan said, watching Victoria test out the wand movements. "The rest I understand… obviously you need the glass to show the image, and the boggart is the link to your enemies. But what does the charm do?"

"It's difficult to explain," Victoria said. Her own understanding of the charm was still quite fragile; in truth, it was a piece of magic far more advanced than anything she had cast before. "It's all about perspective, though. Basically, it enchants a thing to appear differently for different people. Like, think about it this way: what would the foe glass show you, if you didn't have the Anamorphosis Charm?"

Susan frowned. "I guess it'd be whatever a boggart normally transforms into."

"Right," Victoria said, nodding. "You'd just have a boggart in a glass, and it'd show you a snake or a spider or whatever—the creature you're most afraid of."

"So... the charm forces the boggart to transform into something different?"

"Kind of," Victoria said. "Well, not really. Technically the boggart isn't transforming into anything. Different people need to see different things in the glass, so you can't have the boggart actually transform. Instead, the charm is just latching onto one of the boggart's unique powers. And that's the really tricky bit."

"Oh?" Susan said, crossing her arms. "Try me."

Victoria tapped her fingers on the table. "It's divination," she said, speaking slowly as she thought her answer through. "You know how a boggart transforms into the creature you fear most? Well, it's not taking those fears from your mind... it divines the true thing you fear, even if you don't know what that is. Then the Anamorphosis Charm takes that divination and just… changes its direction a bit. Instead of showing you the thing you actually fear, it shows you the thing you should fear— your closest enemies."

"Yeah, you've lost me," Susan said. She leant back and looked up at the ceiling. "I get the bit about making things look different for different people. That's fine. But I don't see how you can cast a charm on some part of a boggart's powers."

"It's... complicated," Victoria said, not even sure where to begin explaining ideal casting. Thankfully, Susan didn't seem interested in an answer.

"Well, thank god we have you," she said with a smile. "Is there anything about magic you don't know already?"

Victoria flushed at the compliment. "Oh, loads. There's so much to learn… I'm constantly finding new things to look up."

She paused. Susan was a pure-blood; she knew all sorts of things that Victoria had never even heard of. Perhaps she could answer what Draco would not.

"Susan, have you ever heard of deep magic?"

"I don't think so," Susan said, without hesitation. "Why? What is it?"

For a moment, Victoria considered telling her about the Death Eater at Malfoy Manor. But her instinctive caution held her back. She trusted Susan more than anyone else, but there was no telling what might happen if she told her aunt. Would Draco get in trouble? Would his parents be investigated?

It would be a poor way to repay the Malfoys' hospitality, if she ended up getting them in trouble with the Ministry. Yes, she had decided that the Malfoys kept some poor company, and she wasn't sure that she would ever accept an invitation back to their house… but still, they had only ever treated her with kindness. She couldn't betray their trust now.

"It's just something I heard," she said. "Don't worry about it."

In truth, investigating deep magic was a long way down Victoria's list of priorities. With all the other projects she had on the go, there was little time to spare for it. She made a couple of unsuccessful forays into the Restricted Section to find books which might mention the subject, but it was like searching for a snitch on a sunny day. She was sure the right book was in there somewhere, but finding it was a different matter.

Her only remaining option was to ask the diary. Ever since her talk with Susan, she had become wary of asking it anything too personal—with their investigations into Tom Riddle reaching a dead end, she couldn't really be sure whom or what she was talking to—but it was an undeniably useful source of information.

After a third trip to the Restricted Section yielded no results, Victoria gave in to temptation. One evening during prep, once she had finished all her homework, she pulled out the diary and flipped it open to the next blank page.

Hello Tom,she wrote. The answer was immediate.

Good evening, Victoria. How's your totem progressing?

Sitting next to her, Susan glanced at the diary with disapproval in her eyes. "I thought you'd stopped using it?"

"Don't worry, I'm being careful," Victoria whispered. "There's no harm talking about magic, is there?"

Susan turned back to her work. "If you say so…"

It was clear she was unconvinced, but the enforced quiet of prep prevented further argument. Victoria made a note to avoid using the diary in front of Susan in the future—no need to agitate her unnecessarily.

She returned her attention to the page. My totem is fine. I wanted to ask you something else, though. Have you heard of deep magic?

This time, the diary took longer to respond.

Where did you hear that term? Deep magic is not widely known. At least, it wasn't in my time.

Victoria sighed. Tom did this sometimes: answering her question with a question, giving her just enough information to encourage her to respond. It was quite annoying.

A dark wizard mentioned it to me. He seemed to think that I knew it already. And I saw Draco making an unbreakable vow about "forsaking the mundane". His magic was different afterwards.

A dark wizard? Tom wrote. One day I should like to hear that story. In any event, you appear to have witnessed your friend making the First Oath. An auspicious occasion.

But what is it? Victoria responded, her handwriting deteriorating as her excitement grew. Why hadn't she just asked him sooner?

It is a form of natural magic. As alchemy is the natural magic of substance, and herbology the natural magic of plants, deep magic is the natural magic of wizards themselves. In practice, invoking that magic involves making commitments and observing traditions which serve to affirm the devotee's wizarding nature.

His answer was so fascinating that Victoria forgot to reply. A wizard's natural magic… she had never before even considered the possibility of such a thing. The implications were mind-boggling. This wasn't a form of magic invented by wizards, like Transfiguration or Charms; it sounded like a way of accessing the magic of a wizard's very existence.

The concept immediately transformed Victoria's sense of what it meant to be a witch. Alchemical magic occurred whenever substances underwent change. If she understood Tom correctly, then each step she took was like a wand movement, her every word an incantation. Her life, from beginning to end, was like one giant spell.

Astounding as Tom's response was, it also created a mountain of questions. She picked up her quill once more.

So when Draco made that vow, what happened? she asked. He seems more powerful now.

Not more powerful. Deep magic comes from yourself; it cannot alter who you are. Yet to take the First Oath is to assert your commitment to magic; doing so rouses your magic from slumber, much like the emotion of a child may trigger accidental outbursts.

Victoria shook her head in disbelief. Madam Pomfrey had told them that the process of magical development would naturally put an end to accidental magic by a witch's thirteenth birthday. The books all agreed with her.

It seemed that the books were wrong.

I want to know more, she wrote. Where did you learn? Is there a book that can teach me?

There is but one such book. Fortunately, you are currently holding it.


By February, Victoria was so busy that she had completely forgotten about the Heir of Slytherin. There hadn't been an attack since her poisoning, and the school had slipped into an assumption that the Heir had been scared away.

That assumption was not to last.

It was a Friday evening, and the Slytherin girls were playing a game of favours in their dorm. A fire was dancing in the hearth, and they were sitting in a circle of cushions at the centre of the room, huddled in blankets—all except Victoria, who was warm enough in her night robe.

"Call," Tracey said, and she picked up two silver trinkets from a pile in front of her and placed them in the centre pot.

"What was that?" Daphne asked, looking up from her cards, "I didn't see."

"Shoe and hairbrush," Tracey said. She held up the little silver models, which corresponded to small favours. If she lost the round, she would have to brush the winner's hair and let them borrow her shoes.

Victoria sighed and looked down at her cards. She had a pair of goblins, a centaur and a witch. Not the best hand in the world, but not terrible either. "Call, I guess." She threw in a silver rose and a quill.

"Well, Vicky obviously has a terrible hand," Daphne said. The others laughed—Victoria was notoriously bad at favours, to the point where she normally refused to play. But tonight Pansy had insisted, declaring that it wouldn't be fun unless she joined in, and Victoria had been oddly touched. She quickly came to regret her moment of weakness, as there were distinctly fewer favours in her pile than Pansy's.

"Okay, discard," Tracey said, and they all selected a card from their hand to place face-down in front of them. Victoria got rid of her centaur, hoping that she could pick up a third goblin. They then took it in turns to take a new card, either from the discarded cards or from the deck.

When it was Tracey's turn, she paused with indecision. "Anyone want to say what they put down?"

Pansy smiled innocently. "Tell me what you want first, and maybe I'll answer."

"No thanks," Tracey said, and she looked to her right instead. "Daphne?"

"House-elf," Daphne replied, "or… was it a centaur? Or maybe a—"

"All right, enough," Tracey said. She turned back to Pansy. "I'm after a merman."

"I might be able to help," Pansy said, looking down at her cards, "if you tell me what you discarded."

Tracey sighed. "Fine. Mine's a goblin."

Victoria tried very hard to conceal her happiness at that revelation, but judging by the knowing look Daphne sent her, she had not succeeded.

"Now, do you have a merman or not?" Tracey asked.

"I do," Pansy replied, and she nudged her discard towards Tracey. "Here you go."

Tracey picked it up with a grin, but her happiness quickly vanished. "This is a witch!"

"Is it?" Pansy said mildly, but her eyes were mischievous. "Oh dear. The portraits must have switched."

Victoria snorted. Tracey should have known not to trust Pansy. "My turn!" she said, and she reached for the card in front of Tracey.

Unfortunately, it was another centaur—Tracey had lied too. She tried to keep her disappointment a secret, but the moment she met Tracey's eyes, the pair of them dissolved into a fit of giggles.

They were interrupted by Hestia Carrow bursting through the door.

"There's been an attack!" she cried, "come on!"

They rushed to follow, the game instantly forgotten. They weren't alone, either: the whole house seemed to have been alerted, and a scrum had formed to get out of the common room.

"Who is it, Hestia?" Daphne asked as she attempted to elbow her way through the crowd.

"Don't know," Hestia said, "but I heard they're just outside the greenhouses."

Finally they were through the portal and running up spiral staircases towards the ground floor. Students were milling everywhere, but there were none of the shouts and jeers of a normal school day; they passed through the halls in a silence broken only by worried whispers.

By the time they reached the greenhouses, the view was blocked by the large number of students, most of whom were older and taller than the second years. With only a few lanterns to light the area, it was almost impossible to make anything out through the darkness.

"Millie!" Pansy hissed, "can you see anything?"

Millicent stood on her tip-toes to get a better look. "Sprout's there," she said, peering over the top of the crowd, "Lockhart too. And… oh. It's that Creevey kid."

Victoria's stomach plummeted. Creepy Creevey, they'd called him… she suddenly felt rather guilty for not treating him better.

"Is he okay?" Daphne asked. She looked like she was about to cry; perhaps she too was remembering the times she had been less than kind to the boy.

"Can't tell," Millicent said, sounding rather blasé about the whole thing. "But there's loads of blood. It's worse than that time Bletchley got double-bludgered."

"Clear the way!" Lockhart called, and with a fair amount of jostling, the crowd parted to allow Professor Sprout and Lockhart past, Colin Creevey levitating unconscious between them. Mutters spread through the watching students, and, as they passed, Victoria saw why: just like Justin, Colin's neck bore the distinct sign of two puncture wounds.


In the aftermath of the attack, new rules were put into place to restrict freedom of movement within the castle. Students now had to travel in groups of at least three at all times, and teachers were to escort them between classes. Anyone found wandering alone would be given a detention.

A sense of malaise had descended, the new restrictions doing more than any attack to create an air of danger. For most, it had been easy to ignore the attacks as isolated incidents, but it was hard to feel safe when your teachers refused to let you wander the corridors alone.

In spite of the changes, the castle's rumour mill was as active as ever, and it was soon known to all that Colin had been moved to St. Mungo's in London. The main topic of debate, however, was the identity of the Heir of Slytherin. Now that everyone had seen the puncture wounds, it was almost universally accepted that a vampire was responsible for the attacks, and it became common for students to challenge each other to stand in sunlight to prove they weren't the Heir.

There were only three people who were completely free from suspicion—those who were not only absent from the castle at the time of the attack, but who were also known to have been investigating the Heir of Slytherin. Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Neville Longbottom therefore returned from their suspension to an unusually warm welcome, with many students seeking them out to hear their theories.

Each of them reacted quite differently to their new-found fame. Hermione ignored it entirely—in fact, she had become rather subdued, keeping to herself in class and completing her work with quiet efficiency in the corner. Ron was the complete opposite, loudly holding court on how Professor Snape was almost certainly a vampire who had invented a potion to protect himself from sunlight. As for Neville, he just looked perpetually glum. Apparently, his grandmother had not taken his suspension well.

"She took my dad's wand off me," Neville said to Dean Thomas, just as Victoria was passing the Gryffindor table at breakfast. "Said I wasn't worthy of it anymore. Here, look." He took out a gleaming new wand. "Cherry with unicorn—"

Dean cut him off with a nudge, jerking his head in Victoria's direction. She blushed, embarrassed at being caught eavesdropping, and quickly moved on. Suspicious stares followed her back to the Slytherin table.

Being both a Slytherin and one of the Heir's previous victims, Victoria occupied a strange position which seemed to earn her twice as much attention as anyone else. She did her best to ignore the stares and get on with day to day life, but there was only so much gossip she could take before she felt the need to hide herself away with Susan in some dark corner of the library.

Not that Victoria minded secluding herself in the library. In the aftermath of the attack, she had discovered a renewed passion for completing the foe glass, and now it was her turn to push Susan into spending their every spare hour working on it, even at the weekend.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and the two of them were as deep into the library as you could get, sitting at a table between the Tessomancy and Magical Law bookcases, where they were free to talk without running the risk of antagonising Madam Pince.

"Here, take a look." Victoria passed Susan a Chocolate Frog card. "What do you see?"

"Laertes Hellson," Susan replied, casting an admiring eye at the card. "He's rather handsome, isn't he?"

Victoria snorted. "If you say so... but can you see the text?"

"Well, yeah," Susan said, sounding confused. "You want me to read it out?" Victoria nodded. "Okay, let's see... One of the great heroes of British wizarding history, Auror Laertes Hellson played a key role during the Imperial Crisis of the Nineteenth Century. He is best known for his defeat of the French sorceress Calliste in 1815, finally answering the question of whether wizards would be permitted empires."

Victoria clapped with happiness. "Oh, I did it!"

"Did what?"

"Don't you see?" Victoria waved at the card. "You see Laertes Hellson, but I see Albus Dumbledore. It's anamorphic!"

Susan's eyes widened. "Oh, wow. That's OWL level magic!" She looked closer at the card. "But which is it really? Hellson or Dumbledore?"

"Both," Victoria said. "Neither. I had to have both cards to make it, but they were used up by the spell. Now it's just… this."

It was at that point that Draco Malfoy joined them, approaching with a grin and carrying a small black box.

"There you are," he said, flopping down into a spare chair, "I've been looking everywhere for you. You're not hiding from me, are you?"

"Never!" Susan gasped, taking his joke a bit too seriously, and Victoria was forced to hide her smile. "But look!" She passed him the Chocolate Frog card. "Victoria's managed to cast the charm. I see Laertes Hellson, but she sees Dumbledore."

"I see Hellson too," Draco said, and Susan's eyes lit up, no doubt pleased by the fact that he saw the same thing as her. He turned the card this way and that, as if he might be able to see Dumbledore by catching it at the right angle. "Very impressive."

"And I've basically finished with the glass," Susan continued, angling the glass dish towards him so he could see the tiny rings of runes spiraling around the rim.

"It's just like the picture in the book," Draco said, leaning in for a closer look. "You know, I think we might actually do this."

Victoria ran her hand through her hair. "We're still missing a pretty major ingredient, though. It could be ages before we find a boggart."

Draco passed the Chocolate Frog card back to Susan. "It's funny you mention that," he said with a sly smile, "there was a reason I came to find you, in fact. There's a boggart hiding by Greenhouse Six."

The greenhouses were located to the rear of the castle, sprawling out in a higgledy-piggledy fashion between the stained-glass windows of the library and the turrets of the east wall. Cobbled paths wound through the maze of glass, with well-established ivy creeping up between the window panes, and each walkway was strewn with all the accoutrements of the Herbologist's trade.

Nothing was thrown away which might one day be used again. A stack of moss-encrusted wood filled one gap between greenhouses, no doubt rescued from some old flower bed, and odd lengths of metal leaned against walls here and there. The first sign of tulips were sprouting from an abandoned cauldron outside Greenhouse Two, and several open crates of dragon manure had been left near the east gate.

At the heart of the greenhouses was an open yard. Three metal pumps were arranged at its centre, one each for water, milk and quicksilver, enchanted with Replenishing Charms by Helga Hufflepuff herself. Off to their side, next to Greenhouse Six, was a small stone shed with a wooden door.

"There it is," Draco said. The door rattled, as if something were eager to get out. "Everyone ready?"

"Er, no," Victoria said, eyeing the door cautiously. "You haven't told us how we're meant to capture a boggart."

"Oh, right. Well, it's pretty simple, in theory." He lifted the black wooden box. "We just have to get it inside of this."

Susan's eyebrows shot up. "Is that a Pandora?"

"Yup," Draco said, looking quite smug. Victoria could understand why—Pandora's Charm was advanced magic. A spell capable of containing powerful dark forces, there were probably only a handful of students at Hogwarts who could cast it. "I found it in the drawing room back home… apparently Grandfather used to keep his tobacco in there, if you can believe it."

"But how do we get the boggart into the box?" Victoria asked. The door rattled again and she took a step back. "Is there a spell?"

"You can use a spell, but we don't learn it 'til next year," Draco said. "I did some reading, and there's actually another way. Basically, boggarts get confused pretty easily. So long as you're not on your own, you can mess it around... everyone's afraid of different things, so it has to keep changing forms. If you do that enough, then it'll try to escape… and boggarts love small, enclosed spaces. In the end, it'll want to go into the Pandora."

"I guess we should spread out, then," Susan said, "so it can come after one of us, then someone else distracts it."

Victoria bit her lip. "I don't know about this… aren't we basically just bait? Shouldn't we have something to protect us, in case it goes wrong? Like that spell? We could probably learn it, with a bit of practice..."

"Not if you want to do this today," Draco said. "And I bet the teachers will have got rid of it by Monday."

"We need to find out who the Heir is," Susan added. "Who knows who'll be attacked next!"

Outvoted, Victoria draw her wand. "Fine. But we should run away if it doesn't work."

The others nodded, and they moved to position themselves in a triangle around the yard: Draco directly facing the shed, so that the boggart would come for him first, with Victoria and Susan off to either side.

"Here we go," Draco said, and he raised his wand. "Alohomora!"

The door swung open with a long creak. Nothing came out.

"There!" Susan cried, pointing at the ground between Draco and the shed, and for a moment Victoria was utterly confused—but then she saw it, a dark shadow creeping across the cobbles. "Lethifold! Draco, move!"

But Draco was rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on the shadow as it approached. Cursing, Victoria ran forwards, waving her arms wildly.

"Hey! Boggart! Over here!"

The shadow paused.

"It's working!" Susan called, "you're confusing it!"

And then the shadow twisted, transforming to meet Victoria. It reared up off the ground, its mutating form growing and growing, stretching out into a hulking body and thick, brownish-green limbs. Dread pooled in Victoria's stomach as she realised what it was.

"Troll!"

The enormous troll roared a challenge, raising its club to the sky, and Victoria backed away.

"Cadere!" she cried, casting the first spell which came to mind, and silver light flashed. The troll stepped into the Trip Jinx, easily breaking through the magic, and lumbered towards her.

"Susan!" Victoria called, her voice panicked. "Your turn!"

Susan stepped forward, throwing rocks at the troll's back, her plait swinging behind her with every throw. The troll turned, bellowed, and started plodding towards her instead.

Susan froze.

"It's not changing!" Draco shouted. "She's scared of trolls too!"

"Run!" Victoria shouted at Susan, who finally moved to flee—too slowly. The troll was going to catch her.

Victoria's wand whipped through the air in an arc, and the cobbles beneath the troll transformed into ice. It slipped, crashing to the ground with a shuddering thump, the ice cracking beneath the weight of its body.

From its position on the ground, the troll looked back at Victoria, and its eyes were full of rage.

Her stomach tightened. "Oh, crap."

And then she was running too, dashing from the yard down one of the many paths leading between the greenhouses. The troll had recovered from its fall; she could hear it behind her, the sound of its stomping footsteps getting quicker as it picked up speed. All thought of capturing it was now forgotten, replaced with the heart-pounding thrill of fear.

She swerved down a side path, hoping she could lose the troll, but she was only a few seconds down the path when the sound of smashing glass came from behind her. She risked a glance over her shoulder to see the troll on the ground once more, surrounded by debris from the destroyed corner of a greenhouse.

A moment later the sound of the troll's pursuit resumed. Victoria sobbed. Her legs were burning from the sprint; she couldn't keep it up. It was going to catch her.

There! An open barrel was tucked into an alcove, and it was full of water. She twisted mid-step, her wand swiping violently from the barrel to the troll. The water shot up from the barrel, forming into a spear in the air, and rocketed back the way she'd come.

She didn't hang around to witness the result. The troll cried out—whether in pain or anger she couldn't tell—and she took the opportunity to crawl between a narrow, overgrown gap between Greenhouse Three and Four.

It was a tight fit, but she didn't let that slow her down. Escape in sight, she propelled herself through the mass of nettles, her hands and face collecting stings with every frantic movement. Her robe caught on a nail, but she kept going, and she emerged from the other side with a tearing sound as the nail opened up a seam down the side of her robe.

The shadow of the troll still loomed on the other side of the long greenhouse. It was stomping around, turning this way and that, but apparently it couldn't figure out where she had gone.

Trembling, Victoria crawled away as quietly as she could. She didn't dare stand—the troll was surely strong enough to smash through the entire greenhouse, if it realised she was there. It was a long crawl before the troll was out of sight.

Finally, when she could no longer hear the sound of its footsteps, she mustered the courage to stand up. Relief flooded her limbs, but it was quickly replaced with worry for Susan and Draco. Would the troll look for them, now that it had lost her? Hopefully they'd taken the chance to escape back to the school.

She traipsed back towards the east gate, scowling as she caught sight of her reflection in the glass of a greenhouse. Robes torn and dirty, there were leaves in her hair and her face was covered in scratches and red patches from nettle stings. Pansy was going to have a field day.

She emerged from the greenhouses to find Susan and Draco arguing by the gatehouse.

"There's no time!" Susan was saying frantically, "we have to go and help her!"

"And do what?" Draco said. "We should get a teacher."

"I agree," Victoria called out, "we should definitely get a teacher."

The two of them spun to face her.

"Victoria!" Susan cried, and she ran across to envelop her in an enormous hug. "Oh, we were so worried!" She stepped back and looked her up and down. "Are you ok? You don't look injured…"

"I'm fine," Victoria said, picking a leaf out of her dark hair. "Nothing a long shower won't fix, at least."

"But where did the troll go?" Susan asked.

"Guys," Draco said, still standing by the gate, "do you hear that?"

An all-too-familiar stomping approached, coming down one of the paths from the greenhouses. Before they could react, the troll charged out into the open, coming out half way between Draco and the girls. Its teeth were beared in an animalistic growl, and it was bleeding from its shoulder.

"Furnunculus!" Draco cried, a jet of pink sparks shooting from his wand, but the jinx only served to irritate the troll. It turned its gaze on Draco, raised its club, and howled a war cry.

"Help!" Draco called, backing away. "Do something!"

But Victoria's mind was blank, still too shocked by the arrival of the troll to do anything.

Susan's wand jabbed towards the crates of dragon dung.

"Locomotor poo!"

The dung launched through the air, following the path of Susan's wand—missing the troll entirely, and sailing with a splat right into Draco, covering him from head to toe.

In spite of the danger, a bark of laughter escaped Victoria. The troll reeled back, as if struck by a powerful curse.

"Oh no…" Susan moaned, looking at Draco with horror, and something about her expression set Victoria off, an uncontrollable giggle bubbling up and out of her. The troll backed away in confusion.

"Locomotor… poo!" Victoria gasped, barely able to breathe, and then Susan was laughing too, the sounds of her inelegant snorting just making Victoria laugh even harder.

The troll was in obvious pain now, its gaze casting around for an escape. Draco stepped forward, held out the Pandora, and opened the box.

The boggart seized the opportunity. It jumped, its form mutating into swirling light as it travelled through the air, and it flew right into the Pandora.

The lid slammed shut behind it.

"Is that it?" Victoria asked, looking nervously at the box in Draco's hands. "It can't come out, can it?"

Ignoring her question, Draco walked over and handed her the Pandora. "I'm going for a shower," he declared, in about as dignified a manner as was possible when covered in dragon dung. He stalked off without another word.

Victoria couldn't help but giggle again as she watched him leave, walking with his head held high.

"He's never gonna speak to me again, is he?" Susan said with a sigh. "I just cast the spell without thinking…"

Victoria shrugged. "Good thing you did, else we'd have been troll food. Or boggart food… do boggarts even eat? Anyway, he'll get over it." She smirked. "You know, eventually. Like, maybe in ten years."

"Victoria!" Susan gasped, "don't joke about that!"

Laughing, they made their way back to the castle, going their separate ways when they passed through the library courtyard. Victoria was heading directly to the Slytherin dorms, wanting to secure the Pandora in her trunk immediately—ideally with a heavy pile of books on top, to make sure the lid stayed shut. She didn't much fancy the thought of the boggart escaping and taking up residence in the space beneath her bed. In fact, she was so focused on keeping hold of the box that she failed to notice the odd looks everyone was sending her as she wandered the corridors alone.

"Potter!" called a voice, just as she was approaching the entrance hall. She turned to see Professor Lockhart striding towards her, his fuchsia robes billowing behind him. "What do you think you're doing?"

She frowned. "Going to the Slytherin common room, Professor."

"On your own?" he asked, and that was when she remembered the new rules. Her face fell as she realised that she'd just earned herself a detention. "Quite," Lockhart said, noting her expression. "Come with me, please."

He led her on a circuitous route up to the Defence Against the Dark Arts corridor on the second floor. Passing the classrooms by, he opened a door which she had never noticed before and ushered her into his office. The walls were crammed with framed photographs, all of them of Lockhart smiling broadly, and as the door closed behind her, Victoria noticed that its back was covered with a poster advertising Voyages with Vampires.

"Oh, Victoria," Lockhart said dramatically, "how did I not see it before? At first, I thought you might be the Heir yourself… but now I understand. You were the first to find Justin, weren't you? And now, I find you wandering alone in the corridors, robes artfully torn, no doubt looking for trouble. The Girl Who Lived, the hero once again… that's what you want, isn't it?"

Victoria was momentarily stunned speechless. "Um, what?"

Lockhart began rummaging through the drawers to his desk. "No use hiding it from me, my girl!" he said. "I know someone desperate for the spotlight when I see them! But you know, it's not all photoshoots and magazine covers." He nodded to a pile of envelopes on his desk. "Fan mail. It's a lot of hard work, being a celebrity. Something to think about, when you're in detention. Now, where are those damn slips…"

He crossed the room and disappeared into a store cupboard, continuing to talk loudly about the burden of celebrity as he tried to find a detention slip. Victoria ignored him. Curious, she drifted towards his desk and took a peak at his fan mail. The first letter was from one Mrs Chartridge, full of praise for Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests, and the next one down was from a Mrs Stroud. Five sickles were spellotaped to the letter, and an order form for a signed photograph was enclosed.

She put the letters down with a snort. Idiots. Couldn't they see that Lockhart was all bluster? Bored with the mail, she turned her eye to a thick, leather-bound notebook and flipped the cover open. At the centre of the first page, written in Lockhart's flowery cursive, was a large title:

Gilderoy Lockhart Presents…
SEEKING WITH SLYTHERINS

[FIRST DRAFT]

Frowning, Victoria flicked through the pages, her disbelief rising as she realised what she was seeing. Was Lockhart writing a book about the Heir of Slytherin? And then her own name caught her eye:

Immediately recognising the poison in question, I rushed to help the young girl, preparing to cast the enormously complex Demudifying Charm to clear the vile substance from her veins. But just as I reached her, the oafish Professor Snape managed to get in my way. Ever does that man seek his own glory, even if it risks the life of a child. He knocked me over (deliberately, I suspect) and simply administered the antidote he happened to be carrying in his pocket. It was a huge risk to take, and Victoria Potter was lucky that he stumbled upon giving her the correct potion.

That was not how she remembered things.

The door to the cupboard slammed shut, and Victoria jumped, looking up to find Lockhart examining her from across the room.

"You shouldn't be reading that," he said, and his usual jovial tone had disappeared. "I don't share my first drafts with anyone but Mr Obscurus."

"Sorry, sir." She closed the book and looked up at him with wide eyes. "I was just… so curious to see what you'd write next."

Lockhart's expression softened. "I should have known better than to leave a young girl alone with one of my drafts. I don't blame you for giving into temptation, but please: tell no one of what you read. It'll be our secret, yes?"

Victoria nodded eagerly, fully intending to tell Susan all about it the next time they spoke.

"Excellent!" Lockhart exclaimed. He waved a sheaf of parchment in the air and came over to stand beside her. "I found the slip. Now, if you'll just pass me a quill…"

He filled in the slip, inserting the details of her crime before signing with a flourish. She noticed that he'd left the "Punishment" section blank.

"Here you go," he said, and he passed her the slip. "Now, I'll be checking with Professor Snape that you've given this to him, so no accidentally losing it, you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well. Off with you, then!"

Victoria blinked. He was just going to send her off on her own? But that was exactly what he'd just given her a detention for! She opened her mouth to object, before pausing. What was she doing? If he was happy to let her go, she wasn't going to insist on a chaperone.

She made to leave—only to pause by the door, still curious about what she had seen. He might have been a braggart, but there had to be some truth to Lockhart's stories, right? There were witnesses, after all. Maybe, for all his faults, Lockhart would be able to solve the mystery.

"Are you really investigating the Heir, sir? Like in your books?"

He sighed and sat down at his desk. "As best I can, my dear. As best I can."